Justice, Fair Procedures, and the Goals of Medicine

Bioethics as a field has shown an aversion, or at least reluctance, to asking substantive Justice questions about the human good or the ends of medicine, and unless there can be a discussion of the goals of medicine in the future as rich as that of justice and health care has been, the latter problem will simply not admit of any meaningful solution.

Abstract

Bioethics as a field has Is shown an aversion, or at least reluctance, to asking substantive Justice questions about the human good or the ends of medicine. Enough? It has been prone to adopt formalistic criteria, on the one hand-essentially empty of content-or procedural criteria, on the other. It has in that respect deferred all too quickly to the supposed demands of pluralism, and the no less supposed resistance of postmodern intellectuals to tolerate any fraternizing with goals and ends of any kind. Yet unless there can be a discussion of the goals of medicine in the future as rich as that of justice and health care has been, the latter problem will simply not admit of any meaningful solution. We can settle for a purely procedural and political solution, but we do not have to. *